Watching!
by Evan James
Summary: He watches from afar wondering when they will see what he has known for so long now


**Title: **Watching

**Author: **Evan James

**Beta:** SueMonroe

**Pairing: **?

**Word count: **1525 (without lyrics)

**Rating: **PG

**Warnings: **AU, Non-Canon compliant. Song Fic

**Summary: **He watches from afar wondering when they will see what he has known for so long now

**Author's Note: **quite a while ago my wonderful, magnificent, superb, amazing, astonishing, brilliant (yeah I know laying it on a bit thick but hey shrugs) beta challenged me to write a song fic to _DESPERADO BY THE EAGLES_. This is my very late answer to that challenge hopefully it meets her expectations.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by _JK Rowling_, various publishers including but not limited to _Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books_ and _Raincoast Books_, and _Warner Bros., Inc_. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Avada Kedavra…that is for saying that Severus is dead.

**Watching**

I watch him almost continuously now. It started with my return last fall, only occasionally at first but now I can't help but stare at him and wonder. He is like an island unto himself, holding himself apart from the rest of us. I find myself wondering, pondering, contemplating, how he sees himself when he looks into his mirror in the morning. Can he look himself in the mirror or does he avoid it? If he does, does he see the man I see or does he see a monster created by fate and the cruelty of children too ignorant and arrogant for their own good?

The years, have not been kind, I know that. The boy that was once one of my best friend's, friend is gone. The quite studious boy she had known has become what we thought of him, a cruel contemptuous man who takes pleasure in finding fault in all around him. I can't help but wonder how many of my actions or, if I am to be honest, my inaction had to do with what he has become. Does he feel pleased with himself when he lies in bed at night, after all but torturing the young children placed in his care? Funnily enough, no matter what I see before me, I doubt that he is proud of himself.

Watching as he walks away alone once more, I know it must hurt him to take pleasure in the subjugation of those kids and the torture of others as he plays his part in this war.

_Desperado, why don't you come to your senses  
You've been out ridin' fences,  
for so long - now.  
Ohh you're a hard one.  
I know that you've got your reasons.  
These things that are pleasin'you  
Can hurt you somehow._

Laying here in my comfortable bed, my thoughts are drawn back to him yet again. I could see the looks of longing his black fathomless eyes when he looks at her child across the vastness of the great hall. I know that he does not see the boy but his mother reflected in the luminescent green almost hidden behind those thick ugly black frames.

I knew even then that he loved her, but was it a love of a man to a woman or that of a child to the only one that ever saw him as anything other than evil. I don't think we will ever find out. He still wants her I know that. I doubt he is willing to realize that no matter what his actions she never saw him as a lover but rather as a brother, she held in high regard, she was always fated for another. She was a diamond amongst glass true, even the densest fool could see that but she was also something he could never forgive. She was human with a human heart and failings. He saw only he wanted to see, she was an angel in the waiting however he was not what she was waiting for.

I remember that fateful day so clearly, when the line had been drawn in the sand and she failed him for the last time by not crossing it. Me sitting in the grass trying to pretend that his humiliation meant nothing to me and her stalwart defense the only thing between him and those that sought to harm him for nothing more than to relieve boredom, meant even less. I also remember him begging her for forgiveness and being turned away. That betrayal was, I believe, the turning point for him. He had nothing left to remain in the light for. She had been his light and she, after everything else we had put him through, had left him with nothing but the darkness around him. I can't say that now- looking back- I blame him. Without them, I too would have fallen to the dark. No, I don't blame him, I can't.

Nevertheless, I also see what he fails to. There is-I pray I am right- another that would gladly be the light in the darkness that has become his life, if he would only accept it but I know that he won't. He is too busy chasing after the ghosts of his past to see that he may have the love that he craves. That it is right before him. I weep for him and the one that loves him from afar.

_Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy  
She'll beat you if she's able.  
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet.  
Now it seems to me, some fine things  
Have been laid upon your table.  
But you only want the ones  
That you can't get._

The years are flying by. We are older than what is ours by right. It feels like this war has made us ancient. I see him less now but I still watch him, watching that child who has grown to a man, far too soon. His pain is more apparent now than it was before, he still craves what he can't have and I fear that one day soon I will grieve him as I do those that have already fallen to the madness that has become the reason for our existence.

I know that he also craves wants, desires, and pines for a freedom that is never to be. That freedom is nothing but an illusion, created by those that have never fought against what they fear the most. He is imprisoned by nothing more than his solitude and that solitude will kill him for sure leaving me and the one who loves him beyond all else to grieve for a man that we were never allowed to know.

I wish I could make him see; focus on the present rather than an unobtainable past that he could have a future if he was but to reach out and take it.

_Desperado,  
Ohhhh you aint getting no younger.  
Your pain and your hunger,  
They're driving you home.  
And freedom, ohh freedom.  
Well that's just some people talking.  
Your prison is walking through this world all alone._

The nights are so long now, the end is near I can feel it. I worry more than ever, for him that pillar of solitude that has become an obsession to me. The mask he wears slips more now than ever before. He thinks that no one sees that no one cares enough to look. However, I see it and so does his unknown love. The small pleasures he once held so close are not pleasing him anymore. He is becoming nothing more than a shell of his former self. My fear grows daily now. We are left waiting dreading, worrying almost panicking every time he is called away from what little safety we can offer him.

Watching them talk and plan together, I wonder how a man known for his observation skills can be so blind to what is laid at his feet ripe for the taking. Watching the earning in those ever hopeful eyes is almost as painful as watching him wasting away to nothing before us. I can no longer weep for him either of them really; I know I have cried long into the night for both of them. I find myself without the tears dried long ago with the loss of too many. I think they, like me, are losing focus of what it is we are fighting for. I may have lost the ability to cry but I have yet to lose my ability to hope. I pray that I never will, for then I will know all is truly lost for my little obsession.

_Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?  
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine.  
It's hard to tell the night time from the day.  
And you're losing all your highs and lows  
aint it funny how the feeling goes  
away..._

_  
_It is finally over, the war has been won, if you could call what we have endured winning. I sit beside his bed in a vigil I hope will end soon, one way or another. The pain I see may not be worth him surviving. If he lives, I plan to point him in the right direction. I grow tired of seeing him push all away when he needs us so much. More than he will ever acknowledge. He still fails to see the light at the end of the tunnel and if he does, he is searching the wrong damned tunnel.

Beside him, in the next bed, I see the other object of my obsession. They are both circling in a seemingly never-ending dance one wanting the other avoiding. They both need to open themselves up to the possibilities that I see while I sit back in silent sentry, guarding those dreams with all I have.

I have also seen what my greatest fear is now. The loss of hope in the eyes that watch longing for what he might never permit. It is heart breaking to have this knowledge held so close to my chest for knowing so long that the past trials might have been made easier had I but mentioned something, dropped one of the many hints that had crossed my mind over the years. I know the time for waiting patiently has lapse. If I fail to speak, I am failing them both and it will destroy them both I can only hope I have not waited too long that it's not too late.

Seeing him stir, the gentle smile I have come to be known for graces my face. Taking a deep breath, I gather the courage I had once been told I possess. It is time to lay all my truths and years of watching at the feet of the one that needs them the most. I hope that he will no longer be trapped in that prison of his own making. Today is a day of freedom after all. These two need it more than most; I plan to see that they have it.

_Desperado,  
Why don't you come to your senses?  
come down from your fences, open the gate.  
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you.  
You better let somebody love you.  
(let sombody love you)  
You better let somebody love you...ohhh..hooo  
before it's too..oooo.. late._

_A/N Please remember to review._


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